Fine Arts Showcase tonight | School briefs

Four Mercer Island High School students will participate in Phase One of the Washington Aerospace Scholars Program at The Museum of Flight.

Juniors Alexander Eriksson, Luis Gonzalez, Alexander Hoffman and Ian Platou were among 308 students who applied this past fall to participate in Phase One of WAS.

The WAS program, hosted at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, is a competitive science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education program for high school juniors from across Washington State and is an affiliate of NASA Johnson Space Center’s National High School Aerospace Scholars program. It was founded in 2006 by five-time NASA shuttle astronaut Dr. Bonnie J. Dunbar.

A partnership with the University of Washington also gives WAS Phase One participants the option to receive five University of Washington credits in Space and Space Travel for their successful completion of the online Phase One curriculum.

The WAS program's goal is to excite and prepare student to pursue careers pathways in STEM fields. By using a distance-learning curriculum, designed in partnership with NASA and the University of Washington, WAS gives students the opportunity to explore topics such as the history of human spaceflight and the impacts of space weather on future human exploration of the universe.

Fine Arts Showcase ‘Under the Big Top’ begins tonight, March 26

Fine Arts Showcase is the annual Mercer Island School District’s Fine Arts celebration and fund raiser for the arts within the schools.

Showcase occurs over two evenings. On March 26, there will be art on display, and other musical performances by the middle and high schools. On Thursday, March 27, there will be craft projects and demos, art on display, as well as small musical ensemble performances.

Performances begin at 5:30 p.m. in the high school Commons.

Adult tickets for the event are $10 prior to Showcase, and $15 at the door. Admission for children is free. Premium reserved seating is also available.

In the most recent issue of the Mercer Island School District's online newsletter, E-Connections, Superintendent Gary Plano explains that teaching students about online communication is part of the School District goals.

“An important part of preparing students for a cognitive, global and digital world is teaching them to contribute to it,” he said.

To that end, students at each of our elementary schools in grades three through five are learning how to build websites through the free web-hosting service ‘Weebly,’ Plano explained.

Apparently students already working on the project say it is not too difficult.

“It’s really easy to do! You would think that publishing a website is hard, but it’s like the easiest thing,” said 4th grade student Lily. “You can do so many things with it that it’s endless.”

Beyond the nuts and bots of setting up a site, the students will learn how to introduce themselves or establish credibility on a topic or how to select images that will not infringe on copyrights, as well as how to add links to other sites.

Central to the project are discussions about online safety and digital citizenship in the context of quality and content, the story noted. Families are encouraged to log in to Weebly with their child at home in order to connect and talk about family values and guidelines regarding online publishing.